Category Archives: Space Station

NASA astronauts, scientists and engineers will join industry and academia for a three-day, in-depth conversation about the International Space Station (ISS) as a catalyst for discovery during the sixth annual ISS Research and Development Conference July 17-20 in Washington. Acting NASA Administrator Robert Lightfoot will provide the morning keynote on Wednesday, July 19.

See the conference agenda for a full list of topics and speakers. Keynote addresses and panels from the conference will be broadcast on NASA TV and the agency's website.

The conference, hosted by the American Astronautical Society and the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS), in cooperation with NASA, brings together leaders from industry, academia and government.

Attendees will explore innovations and breakthroughs in microgravity research; life sciences; materials development; technology development; human health and remote sensing; the potential applications for space-based research; and the economic benefits of increased commercial activity in low-Earth orbit.

NASA astronaut Kate Rubins, who tested an innovative technology in orbit that may improve medical diagnoses in space and on Earth, will provide a keynote presentation. Rubins completed her first spaceflight in 2016, and was the first person to sequence DNA in space.

The technology she used could help diagnose potentially fatal diseases in remote locations, including during long space voyages. Rubins also grew heart cells in orbit, performing real-time analysis and experiments.

NASA and CASIS, both manage and fund research on the space station, will provide overviews of research applications, external and internal capabilities, and upcoming opportunities.

During the Monday, July 17 preconference day, NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) will host a joint workshop covering the achievements and opportunities tied to cooperative use of unique JAXA experiment hardware for joint research.

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NASA Offers Space Station as Catalyst for Discovery in Washington - Space Daily

A sixth-grade teacher took an interest in Randy Bresnik and helped him to shape up.

She paid attention to me and that made a difference in my life, NASA astronaut Bresnik said during a phone call from Star City, Russia.

Bresnik is making final preparations to launch to the International Space Station. He will be joined on Expedition 52 by Sergey Ryazanskiy of the Russian space agency Roscosmos and Paolo Nespoli of the European Space Agency on the mission. They will launch July 28 and return to Earth in December.

When aboard the space station, which is the only permanently occupied orbiting lab, crew members will conduct several hundred experiments in biology, biotechnology, physical science and Earth science, according to a NASA news release.

This will be Bresniks second trip to the International Space Station and his first long-duration mission.

He said its an overwhelming experience to go to space.

Its the physical sensation and seeing the curvature of the Earth, he said. You realize the finiteness of the Earth. To know that every person you know and memory you have, is on that blue marble. It gives you a new perspective.

He said he wished more people could have that experience.

Bresnik was born at the former Ireland Army Community Hospital in Fort Knox. He spent two weeks in Kentucky before moving to Santa Monica, California. Before becoming an astronaut in 2004, he was a U.S. Marine.

Bresnik has cataloged the preparations for his trip on social media. As hes getting ready, he said hes also learned about the upcoming solar eclipse Aug. 21. The astronauts in the space station will be able to see the eclipse and send back photos.

For students who want to go to space one day, Bresnik advises them to work hard in school.

Do it to your fullest extent, and make learning a lifelong opportunity, he said.

Bresnik said astronauts are a tiny part of the space operation, and many people can have a role in missions such as this one.

Katherine Knott can be reached at 270-505-1747 or kknott@thenewsenterprise.com.

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Fort Knox-born astronaut prepares for space mission - Elizabethtown News Enterprise

WASHINGTON, July 14, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA astronauts, scientists and engineers will join industry and academia for a three-day, in-depth conversation about the International Space Station (ISS) as a catalyst for discovery during the sixth annual ISS Research & Development Conference July 17-20 in Washington. Acting NASA Administrator Robert Lightfoot will provide the morning keynote on Wednesday, July 19.

See the conference agenda for a full list of topics and speakers. Keynote addresses and panels from the conference will be broadcast on NASA TV and the agency's website.

The conference, hosted by the American Astronautical Society and the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS), in cooperation with NASA, brings together leaders from industry, academia and government. Attendees will explore innovations and breakthroughs in microgravity research; life sciences; materials development; technology development; human health and remote sensing; the potential applications for space-based research; and the economic benefits of increased commercial activity in low-Earth orbit.

NASA astronaut Kate Rubins, who tested an innovative technology in orbit that may improve medical diagnoses in space and on Earth, will provide a keynote presentation. Rubins completed her first spaceflight in 2016, and was the first person to sequence DNA in space. The technology she used could help diagnose potentially fatal diseases in remote locations, including during long space voyages. Rubins also grew heart cells in orbit, performing real-time analysis and experiments.

NASA and CASIS, both manage and fund research on the space station, will provide overviews of research applications, external and internal capabilities, and upcoming opportunities.

During the Monday, July 17 preconference day, NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) will host a joint workshop covering the achievements and opportunities tied to cooperative use of unique JAXA experiment hardware for joint research.

Media interested in interviewing NASA personnel should contact Tabatha Thompson at 202-358-1100 or tabatha.t.thompson@nasa.gov.

Watch the conference live stream at:

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NASA Offers Space Station as Catalyst for Discovery in Washington - PR Newswire (press release)

Randy Bresnik will get a closer look at the August eclipse than anyone back on Earth from 250 miles above the Lowcountry.

Bresnik, a graduate of The Citadel, is scheduled to launch July 28 for the International Space Station, where he'll take over on Sept. 1 as commander of an American-Russian crew. The spacecraft will be positioned just north of Charleston when a relatively rare total solar eclipse occurs Aug. 21.

The crew's job is to continue a few hundred experiments already underway, such as research studying the effects of the craft's micro-gravity on heart stem cells.

But on that August afternoon, Bresnik will be doing the same thing as a lot of people in the world beneath him: shooting photos and video.

"We'll get a different perspective than what you will see, and a different perspective than what the satellites see (from farther out in space)," he said Friday during a brief phone interview from the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia.

The closely monitored and timed interview, conducted with NASA officials breaking in to announce the remaining minutes and then to end it, is a glimpse into Bresnik's daily mission-training life. The interview was one in a series scheduled back-to-back before Bresnik travels Sunday to the takeoff launch site, the Cosmodrome in Baikonur, Kazakhstan.

Star City is a secure location, like a military fort, in the forest near the Chkalovsky Airport on the outskirts of Moscow. Built as its own city, most there have no need to come or go. It looks like a lot of woodsy Southern U.S. military base towns, where the tree-lined homes are modest and the roads turn from asphalt to dirt.

The family of Gagarin, the Russian cosmonaut who was the first human in space, still live there, according to the Daily Mail of London.

Baikonur, about 400 miles to the south, is a village in arid, flat scrubland along the Podstepka River with touristy downtown spots amid rows of Soviet-era low-rise structures. The terrain looks like West Texas. The Cosmodrome sits just to its north, another secure facility in the barren flats.

Bresnik, a 1989 graduate of the Citadel, was a Marine Corps aviator when he became one of 11 members of NASA's Astronaut Class 9 in 2004, a class selected from about 4,000 applicants. He space-walked in 2009 aboard the shuttle Atlantis.

For more than a year, he and other crew members have been in rigorous training for the space station mission in both the United States and Russia, as well as locations in Europe. The training has included Russian language tutoring.

Other training has been done in mock-ups of the station and its array of modules, some underwater to simulate the free float of work outside the spacecraft. A lot of the rest is studying reams of manuals and making responses routine for the crew to the necessary communication needs and other duties.

The current political tension between the U.S. and Russia hasn't spilled into the mission or the camaraderie, Bresnik said. The space station has been a joint mission between the two countries since it was launched in 1998. The technicians and astronauts remain dedicated to the mission.

"Nobody lets any of that (political) stuff get in the way of what we're doing," Bresnik said.

Besnik flew to Russia shortly after a break spending Christmas in Texas with his wife, Rebecca, and two children.

After his 2009 space-walking journey aboard the shuttle Atlantis, he talked about the awe and hard-to-grasp scale of circling the Earth with the sun rising every 90 minutes. The astronauts think of the two-week shuttle missions as a sprint, with so much to be accomplished very quickly.

A space station mission, on the other hand, is a marathon: 180 days aloft, along with "getting uphill and getting back down" in the Soyuz spacecraft.

Besnik said he is looking forward to one perk of life in the station a windowed cupola that juts from the craft and offers views of the universe and the world below. He anticipates spending some quality down time there, watching as he circles the planet.

Reach Bo Petersen Reporter at Facebook, @bopete on Twitter or 1-843-937-5744.

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Space cadet: Citadel grad astronaut Randy Bresnik preps to lift off from Russia - Charleston Post Courier

Microgravity research on the International Space Station may give new insights into fighting cancer, NASA said.

A new investigation in space is trying build a drug to to help the immune system kill cancer cells , which would prevent a given type of cancer from happening again in a patient. Investigators hope to make this possible using a new drug and antibody combination that could decrease the nasty side effects (such as nausea and hair loss) that are common with patients using chemotherapy, NASA officials said in a statement.

While chemotherapy is effective in treating cancer, the treatment unfortunately kills healthy cells along with the unhealthy ones. The new approach targets only cancer cells by combining an antibody with azonafide, a cancer-killing drug. Investigators said they are hopeful that the new combination will cause less severe issues than those associated with chemotherapy, though the treatment will still have side effects. [Benefits of Cancer Research on Space Station Explained (Video)]

New drugs in development on the International Space Station would target cancer cells and cause fewer side effects than chemotherapy. This six-well BioCell will culture the cancer cells.

"One of the reasons cancer cells grow in certain individuals is their defense mechanism fails to recognize" the cancer cells, co-investigator Dhaval Shah, an assistant pharmaceutical sciences professor at SUNY Buffalo in New York state, said in the statement.

"This [new] molecule also has the ability to wake up, or release the brake on existing immune cells within the cancer," Shah added. "In any given tumor, when these molecules are released [from the cancer cell], they 'wake up' the surrounding immune cells and stimulate the body's own immune system, making it recognize and kill the cancer cells itself."

Doing cancer research on the International Space Station provides other benefits as well, he said. The microgravity environment better simulates the human body, because you can grow large, spherical cancer tumors, Zea said.

Also, future explorers heading to Mars are at an increased risk of cancer due to radiation. This research could provide insights into how effective these drug combinations are in microgravity, which would be helpful if the illness happens to occur in astronauts en route to Mars or returning home, NASA stated.

"We don't know if the cells will be metabolizing the drug at the same rate as they do on Earth," said Shah. "In the long term, we need to be sure what drugs are going to work."

The investigation is called "Efficacy and Metabolism of Azonafide Antibody-Drug Conjugates (ADCs) in Microgravity." More information about microgravity investigations can be found @ISS_Research.

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Cancer-Killing Treatment Tested on International Space Station - Space.com

NORMAL Maybe elementary and junior high school students can't take a ride on the vomit comet to experience zero gravity. But they can get a taste of how astronauts train for working in micro-gravity in a swimming pool.

That's what 16 students entering sixth- through eighth-grade have been doing this week at Normal Community West High School in the Challenger Learning Center's International Space Station Underwater Adventure. It's part of Heartland Community College's Youth Enrichment Program.

Like the astronauts, the students learn they have to move slowly and carefully as they work to assemble modules that simulate the International Space Station.

It's harder than you think, said 11-year-old Josie Melrose of Bloomington, who will be a sixth-grader at Evans Junior High School this fall. It takes some time to get used to it.

Laura Pulley, 12, of Downs, has wanted to take the class for a couple of years but it wasn't offered last year and she was too young the year before.

I love to explore and learn especially about space, said Laura, who will be a seventh-grader at Tri-Valley. She did a Challenger center mission on a school field trip and said, ever since then, I've wanted to be an astronaut.

The students are using snorkeling equipment and a device similar to scuba equipment called a sea breathe. The sea breathe floats on the surface of the pool and two students at a time wear masks connected to it with hoses, breathing as they would with scuba gear.

Using the sea breathe and learning about scuba techniques, although it is not a scuba class, is the favorite part of the course for Rylan Nelson of Normal. But the 12-year-old, who will be in seventh-grade at Metcalf School, said he also likes learning about space and the International Space Station.

I like how they show us all of the science around it, he said.

But the students are learning more than science and snorkeling.

We will work on teamwork every day, said Shrewsbury.

That happens both in and out of the pool.

For example, they had a group activity where everyone was standing on a space blanket to protect them from the toxic surface of the planet they were on actually a classroom. They had to figure out how to reverse the blanket without losing any of their fellow astronauts.

About a third of the class wound up stepping off the blanket the first day, Shrewsbury said. But, by the second day, their communication and strategy skills improved and no one touched the toxic ground.

Another lesson is the importance of practice and training.

By Day 5, the students will be able to assemble the space station underwater in about an hour but the final task will be preceded by six or seven of practice, explained Shrewsbury.

That's about what it is for astronauts, she said at least six or seven hours of practice for an hourlong spacewalk.

They'll understand it's not just about being an astronaut, but in life it takes time and it takes practice and you have to work as a team, said Shrewsbury.

Josie was confident she and her fellow students would be ready when their parents came to watch.

I think by Friday we'll totally have it mastered, she said.

Mike Burt, a chemistry teacher at Normal West, who also teaches earth and space science, is helping with the class. He said it's a good opportunity to learn more about the Challenger center.

Even though they're just down the street, I had no idea they had all these resources, he said.

Follow Lenore Sobota on Twitter @Pg_Sobota

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Students take plunge to build space station | Local News ... - Bloomington Pantagraph

Bellefonte Area students could get chance to communicate with astronauts in space Centre Daily Times The school is one of 13 in the country to be approved for the second phase of a selection process to host the Earthbound part of amateur radio contact with the International Space Station crew. Representatives from the International Space Station are ...

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Bellefonte Area students could get chance to communicate with astronauts in space - Centre Daily Times

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Four willing students in China have signed up to stay within a self-sustaining ecosystem inside two bunkers that simulate life inside a space station for 200 days.

Sealed from the outside world, the participating students from the Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics will be involved in a lot of recycling and reusing items ranging from plant cuttings to urine.

The participants entered the Lunar Palace-1 on Sunday and will be living self-sufficiently throughout the duration of the program.According to Reuters, the simulation is aimed to help the students find out more about the conditions of living in a space station on another planet.

The program is part of a bigger project that will be creating a self-sustaining ecosystem that may, in the near future, provide humans the necessities to survive.

The students explained that they happily accepted the challenge as it somehow gets them closer to becoming real astronauts.

Ill get so much out of this, Liu Guanghui, a PhD student, was quoted as saying. Its truly a different life experience.

According to Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics professor and project head Liu Hong, they have carefully calculated every necessary component for human survival.

Weve designed it so the oxygen (produced by plants at the station) is exactly enough to satisfy the humans, the animals, and the organisms that break down the waste materials, she said.

She pointed out that aside from the physical needs, the experiment is also keen on studying the mental impact of being confined in such a limited space for a certain duration of time.

They can become a bit depressed, Liu said. If you spend a long time in this type of environment it can create some psychological problems.

Liu Hui, a student, and participant from the programs initial 60-day experiment at Lunar Palace-1,has reported that she sometimes felt a bit low after working for a day.

As an adjustment, the projects research team designed a specific set of daily tasks for the students to avoid stressing them out.

Part of the new experiment will also test the group how their bodies will react to living a for 200 days without exposure to sunlight.

We did this experiment with animals so we want to see how much impact it will have on people, the professor said.

The Chinese space program, which has been expanding in recent years, is set to probe to the dark side of the moon by next year, with the plan of putting astronauts on the moon by 2036.

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4 Chinese Students to Survive in 'Space Station' in Beijing For 200 Days - NextShark

Made In Space has revealed it has begun using PEI/PC, a high-performance polymer, in its Additive Manufacturing Facility (AMF) on the International Space Station (ISS).

PEI/PC, or polyetherimide/ polycarbonate, is an aerospace-grade polymer that has often been used in aviation and space applications due to its ability to produce strong and heat-resistant materials. Examples of PEI/PC used in additively manufactured parts in aerospace are ULTEM 9085, which has been applied by United Launch Alliance (ULA) among others, and ULTEM 1010, which has been applied by such companies as Eviation Aircraft.

Made In Space already uses ABS (acrylonitrile butadine styrene) and Green PE (polyethylene) in the Additive Manufacturing Facility adopted by NASAs artificial low Earth orbit satellite. PEI/PC represents the third material incorporated into its AMF processes.

Made In Space is proud to add PEI/PC to the suite of materials it is manufacturing in space with, said Andrew Rush, President and CEO of Made In Space. Our team has been regularly printing parts in space with AMF for over a year now. This unparalleled knowledge base of in-space manufacturing operations will enable us to deliver future in-space manufacturing solutions in the most cost effective and efficient ways possible.

With nearly three times the tensile strength of ABS, PEI/PC has been used in the making of satellites and external hardware, as well as in aircraft cabins, and even in medical applications. In 2015, ULA used a PEI/PC material to print a duct for the Environmental Control System of its Atlas V rocket, and just last month, Eviation Aircraft printed a composite lay-up tool in another PEI/PC material.

As well as its use aboard the International Space Station, MIS will look to enhance its Archinaut Development Program with the adoption of the new polymer. Archinaut is Made In Spaces proprietary in-space manufacturing assembly technology, able to build space-optimised portions on spacecraft and satellites. Andrew Rush talked openly with TCT earlier this year about where the company was up to with Archinaut, where he sees it being utilised in the future. The use of PEI/PC will contribute to the technologys development, and is the next step in Made In Spaces ambitions, for Archinaut and for space manufacturing generally.

Manufacturing in PEI/PC really expands the value of in-space manufacturing for human spaceflight, added Rush. PEI/PC is a truly space-capable material. With it, extravehicular activity (EVA) tools and repairs, stronger and more capable intravehicular (IVA) tools, spares, and repairs, and even satellite structure can be created on site, on-demand. That enables safer, less mass-intensive missions and scientific experiments.

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Made In Space to use PEI/PC polymer on International Space Station 3D printing platform - TCT Magazine

If you have ever wondered what life on a different planet might be like, it might look a little like this. Susana Victoria Perez (@susana_vp) has more. Buzz60

Student volunteers wave from inside the Lunar Palace 1, a laboratory simulating a lunar-like environment, in Beijing.(Photo: STR, AFP/Getty Images)

They tried it with animals; now its time to try it with humans.

Yes, a group of human guinea pigs actually, four Chinese university students are trying to find out how it feels to live in a self-sustaining space station on another planet.

They are part of a project aimed at creating an ecosystem that provides everything humans need to survive, Reuters reported.

The students, from Beihang University, previously known as the Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, entered the Lunar Palace-1 module on Sunday with the aim of living self-sufficiently for 200 days.

The module containsfour bed cubicles, a common room, a washroom, a waste-treatment room and an animal-raising room, according to a report by the official Xinhua News Agency and the People's Daily newspaper.

"I'll get so much out of this," Liu Guanghui, a Ph.D student, who entered the 1,700-square-foot temporary residence on Sunday, told Reuters. "It's truly a different life experience."

Human waste will be treated through a bio-fermentation process, Xinhua reported,and vegetables and other crops will be grown with the help of food and waste byproducts.

The experiment comes as China seeks to become a global power in space exploration, with plans to send the first probe to the dark side of the moon by 2018 and to put astronauts on the moon by 2036, Reuters reported.

Liu Hong, a professor at at the university who is leading the project,said everything needed for human survival had been carefully calculated.

Four student volunteers take an oath before entering the Lunar Palace 1, a laboratory simulating a lunar-like environment.(Photo: STR, AFP/Getty Images)

"We've designed it so the oxygen (produced by plants at the station) is exactly enough to satisfy the humans, the animals and the organisms that break down the waste materials," she told Reuters.

The project also is a test of the psychological impact on humans of a long stay on another planet.

"They can become a bit depressed," Liu told the agency. "If you spend a long time in this type of environment it can create some psychological problems."

The project's support team has found mapping out a specific set of daily tasks for the students is one way that helps them to remain happy, Reuters reported.

"We did this experiment with animals, ... so we want to see how much impact it will have on people," Liusaid.

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Chinese students to live 200 days in sealed space module with nothing going in and nothing coming out - USA TODAY